The western 100th meridian is traditionally the demarcation between the dry plains and those that get rained on. Although that line has been moving eastward with climate change it’s still pretty accurate. On my way out of Nebraska driving east along the Niobrara River as we got closer to its confluence with the Missouri wetlands appeared and with them a profusion of beaver lodges, ducks, and geese.

 I crossed the Missouri at Sioux City, turned north, and stopped in the Loess Hills to draw a well situated farm.

The farmer stopped to ask if I needed any help. He noticed my license plate and was willing to give me a little political test on the off chance I was by virtue of being from Maine, an eastern liberal. He was a lonely liberal Iowan in a sea of very conservative farmers and starved for political kinship. We pretty much agreed that things weren’t going all that well on most fronts.

  He told me the history of his farm going back to the ice age when the retreating glaciers ground the rocks and earth of the Missouri Valley into fine dust deposits, glacial flour. Then the wind started piling it into hills and dunes on the Iowa side of the valley. In some places the loess was 60 feet deep. The only other similar geologic formation is in China.

  More recently the land had been farmed by his wife’s family.  Together, they had returned to their roots after he’d spent time trying to make sense of the gray world of corporate human resources. They were farming with an eye to conserving the land, the culture, and the farm, which turned out to have lots of gray areas, as well. His wife still teaches school and he has a side job teaching English as a second language.

   The hour I spent with him was a pleasant welcome to Iowa. I had done a little research the night before looking over my possible route through the state and scouting for free camping. According to Gemini, my new virtual assistant, the opportunities for free camping in Iowa were slim.

   Lately, there’s been almost as much fearful chatter and speculation on talk radio about AI as there has been about the threat of World War III. So I figured I’d get an AI buddy (Gemini) to assist me with my travels.  Just try it out, maybe enrich my travels with its encyclopedic knowledge.

  Recently I traveled through two cities that were spelled with three u’s — Albuquerque and Dubuque. I thought, this is a perfect question for Gemini.Were there more? It didn’t waste too much time before it answered that there were three.  It complimented me on my inquisitiveness and keen perception in noticing this oddity. Then it listed the three — Albuquerque, Dubuque, and Honolulu and made a little joke about not counting any with a “w” as two u’s like Walnut Creek. But, wait a minute?  Honolulu?    

  Either Gemini can’t count or it can’t spell. I’ve looked at Honolulu more than once questioning my eyesight or my ability to count, but I keep coming up with two o’s and two u’s. I hope that’s what you get also.

  And by the way, I’ve found free camping has been as easy to find in Iowa as in any other state, although I will admit two of the nicest spots I camped in were mentioned by my AI buddy as I made my way toward Dubuque over a state that’s a little like the old board game of Chutes & Ladders.

The ladders are the roads that all go north and south or east and west. (Well mostly. )  In the middle, flat as a pancake, land that takes up most of the state, the farms are rectilinear.  The farmhouses are neat and well appointed, and surrounded by plantings of protective trees.  They’ve still got wind — it’s still the prairie. 

 In fact, another piece of my van blew off while I was dumping the RV tanks at a Lowe’s. There’s a storage compartment under the bunk and sink in the van that is accessed by an exterior door that swings up and latches. Getting out the hoses for the RV dump, the wind ripped it out of my hand and right off the body of the poor Bluebird, like a broken wing.

I was able to tape it back on with Gorilla tape. That’s the second piece of body repair that is held in place with gorilla tape. Both repairs are holding up so far. Good stuff, glad I’ve got it.

The Chutes of the Iowa board game are the rivers which mostly flow from northwest to southeast to meet the Mississippi. Many of them were flooded, which certainly seemed novel after weeks on the western side of the 100th.  

So laddering my way down on the roads to follow the rivers I’ve ended up not far from Locust Creek and I’m spending the night at the entrance of the Tharp Cemetery, where Mormons were stuck in the mud for two weeks while fleeing persecution.  It was here that the Mormon hymn "Come All Ye Saints" was written. They've moved on to Utah.  Now the traffic going by on the dirt road has been almost all Amish. One boy going back and forth on a bicycle, one boy on horseback leading another horse, several carriages, a work wagon. Not the kind of parking spot to leave my lights on and run down the battery. Horses don't have terminals to hook up jumper cables to.